Two Korean friends are talking:

A: Gosh, I have an important exam tomorrow. So nervous!!

B: Jincha (Really)? Fighting!!

What do you mean by “fighting”? If you have watched any Korean dramas, you would know that what “Fighting” really means in Korean. It means “Cheer up”.

Because of such a prevalence of English in modern Korean culture and society, Korean people often use English words and end up code-switching without even realizing it. This is often referred to as “konglish” which are words adapted from English in ways that may seem strange to native English speakers. The words, having initially been taken from the English language, are either actual English words in Korean context, like 모터사이클 (motorcycle), or are made from a combination of Korean and/or English words (such as Officetel 오피스텔 Office + Hotel) which are not used in English-speaking countries. It can be considered a sublanguage, and common sentence structure or vocabulary mistakes made by Koreans have also been referred to as Konglish. ‘Sharp 샤프: mechanical pencil’ ‘Handphone 핸드폰: mobile phone’ ‘Skin 스킨: toner’ are very common examples of Konglish.